Gaston's Christmas Carol
by Answer
Summary: Gaston didn't like Christmas. And it began to look like Christmas didn't much like him, either.
1. Chapter 1

The Beast was dead, to begin with.

Well, Gaston said it was. But then he would know, wouldn't he? He'd been the one fighting it. And yes, he'd emerged from the battle looking bloodied and bruised and a lot like someone who'd fallen off the roof of a castle – whatever that looked like – but he'd been the only one there. Well, him and the Beast, but they couldn't ask him, he was dead. To a man, the villagers agreed that the only way to escape that monster would have been to kill it, and Gaston _had_ escaped. So, it bore repeating: the Beast was dead.

It was all anyone talked about for weeks afterwards – or should have been. Gaston had calculated, by estimating the length of time people had congratulated him on killing a bear with the amount of time spent celebrating the untimely end he had brought to a boar and then getting Lefou to do the sums, that the death of the Beast should have earned him the undying gratitude and admiration of the village for six months and half a potato. Lefou wasn't all that good at sums. But even allowing for that, he couldn't help but feel that his crowning moment of glory had been overshadowed all too quickly by the coming of Christmas.

Gaston didn't like Christmas.

Well, that wasn't completely true. Christmas was, after all, a time of celebration, and no one knew how to celebrate like Gaston. The days leading up to it would generally find him in the tavern of an evening, as full to the brim with festive cheer as anyone else. It also couldn't be said of Gaston that he didn't know how to accept a present, and if his friends, neighbours and well-wishers took it upon themselves to compete to see who could give him the most impressive gift – well, that was their own business, and you couldn't blame them for wanting to get his attention.

Alright, so Gaston liked the Christmas _season_ just fine. It was Christmas Day that bothered him. Every twenty-fifth of December, the village forgot about him. They went to church, they spent time with their families. The tavern was closed. The streets were deserted. For that one day of the year, no one cared what Gaston was doing – and he hated it.

He was a hero! He was the greatest hunter the world had ever seen. He was strong, handsome, brilliant. Girls swooned over him, men longed to be him. But he was all of those things all year round! What was so special about Christmas, anyway?

And now, here it was. The night before Christmas and, all through the town, not a creature was stirring, they were all lying down. The stockings were hung... Oh, what was he doing? What was that? Something out of one of those – he shuddered to think the word – _books_? One of those things where the words sound the same? Ugh. He hated books. He hated Christmas.

His thoughts continued in much the same vein as he did his fifty press-ups, practiced posing with his gun and went to bed.

When he woke up, it was still dark, and two enormous eyes were looking at him. He squinted at them for a moment, then fumbled for a match, lighting the candle beside his bed.

A pool of flickering yellow light spread out around him. The eyes remained distant in the darkness. Gaston frowned.

"Who's there?"

Silence.

It was nothing, Gaston thought. The blue eyes must be a trick of the light – maybe even a reflection of his own.

They blinked.

Gaston's frown deepened. A cold gust of wind threatened to put out the flame.

He wasn't having this. He was Gaston. Nothing frightened him. He'd hunted every creature native to these parts. He was the victor of a thousand tavern brawls. He'd slain the Great Beast – well, more or less. So were two blue eyes in the darkness going to scare him? No. No they weren't.

"Step forward," he said. "Coward."

Another moment of silence. Then, slowly, too slowly, a shape moved into view. First, a hairy paw, claws tinged golden in the candlelight. Then a knee, a forearm, a tail – and there it was. The horns, the teeth and the bright, blue eyes – the Beast.

Gaston whimpered. He didn't mean to, and he would take the secret to his deathbed, but he did.

"Gaston?" The creature's voice was a low growl.

"What?" Gaston squeaked – responded. Calmly, and in a manly fashion.

"I need to speak to you."

"But you're dead!" Gaston protested. Then, taking a moment to separate various types of reality he amended his response to "What do you want with me?"

The Beast wasn't allowing a comment like that to pass so easily. "Dead?" he asked, what might have been a smile playing around his enormous teeth.

Gaston folded his arms. Terrified as he was, he wasn't going to let his pride take a hit like that. "Well, you would be. If you'd fought fair."

The Beast made to counter this remark, but something stopped him. "You have a lot to learn."

"From a creature like you?" The question burst out of Gaston before he'd even thought about it.

"Yes," the Beast replied, quietly. "From a creature like me. We're not that different, you and me."

Gaston scoffed. "Apart from my good looks, charm, strength..."

"Strength?" the Beast repeated, lifting Gaston bodily out of bed with one arm.

Gaston fought to suppress memories of that night on the roof. "What do you want? I'll give you anything—"

The Beast shook his head, depositing the quivering hunter on the ground. "I'm doing this wrong." He cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said, "but would you mind coming with me? I need to show you something."

Gaston had a vision of the two of them walking out into the street. Gaston, the hero, and a dead Beast. "No," he snorted, more confident back on terra firma.

"It won't take a moment."

"I don't care!" Gaston cried. "I'm not going to-"

"I'm afraid I'll have to insist."

The Beast took his arm. Gaston made to shake it off, but was distracted by the way the room sort of went fuzzy, then faded away.

"What's happening?" he demanded – or tried to. The words seemed lost as soon as they left his mouth. They were nowhere – floating, drowning in nowhere. Panic rose in his throat – and then they were safe. For a given value of "safe". There seemed to be a normal ratio of air to floor, which made him feel a lot better, but they were also in almost total darkness. "Where am I?"

The Beast let go of him. "We're in the past. My past."

Gaston looked around. They were in a tunnel. A long, dark tunnel. In both directions, distant sources of light were visible. They were both a long way away. "Your past is boring," he commented.

"Yes," the Beast replied. "I know. Come with me."

Gaston wasn't listening. He was imagining what his own past would look like. It wouldn't be some lousy tunnel, that was for sure. It would be a forest. A bright, green forest with a bloodied animal carcass by every tree, and six men to every carcass, patting him on the back and offering him a drink, and six women to every man, offering him... further congratulation. He grinned, nodding a little at the perfection of this scene.

The Beast rolled his eyes, thumped a paw into the small of the hunter's back and steered him down the tunnel.

After they'd paced a little way, Gaston asked, "So how come your past is a tunnel?" He wasn't really interested, of course. Not even a little. He was just keeping the creature distracted until this "past" of his yielded some kind of weapon he could use to dispatch him. Could you kill someone in their own past? Well, he'd find out.

The Beast took a slow, deep breath. "It's long and dark and cold and the only way out is forwards. Or backwards, but that's just so I can teach you."

"Teach me what?"

The Beast didn't reply. Gaston decided he didn't care. They walked down the tunnel – well, the Beast did. Gaston slouched behind him, wondering if he should make a move to escape. On the other hand, there was something about this tunnel. It was cold, like the Beast said, but not just a normal kind of cold. It made him almost... cold on the inside.

He shook his head. That was stupid. Cold was cold, and easily fixed with a good thick fur.

He began to become aware that there were shiny... things, in the walls. Like windows but not. He peered into them – not because he was interested. Just because there wasn't much to look at in the tunnel except the back of the Beast, and that was making him feel a bit shivery. No, it wasn't. It was just cold in this tunnel. But still.

One held a rose in a glass jar. Gaston skipped over that. Flowers weren't his thing. In another, there was an outline of the Beast. He was hunched, defeated. Gaston crowed inwardly at the sight. Or he started to. There was something about the creature's pose.

_It's hopeless. Hopeless_.

"What did you say?" Gaston asked, taking a few hurried steps to catch up.

The Beast glanced over his shoulder. "Nothing."

"Huh," said Gaston. "Are we nearly there yet? I'm sick of this tunnel."

The Beast stopped because there was a door in front of him. He pushed it open and effected a mock-bow, ushering Gaston in ahead of him. Gaston decided he liked this treatment.

The room was large and richly decorated and contained a man in an ornate chair and a number of other people, not in chairs. Gaston strode forward. Other people, excellent. Maybe one of them would have a gun. They'd be as good an audience as any when he took care of the Beast – for real, this time.

He tapped one of them on the shoulder. "Hey!"

The man didn't move.

Gaston was unaccustomed to this kind of reception. Annoyed, he walked in front of the man and faced him down. "I'm talking to you."

The man stared through him.

Gaston was bewildered. "What's the matter with him?"

The Beast calmly closed the door and crossed to join him. "He can't see you."

"What do you mean, can't see me? I'm right here!"

"We're revisiting something that's already happened. This man didn't see you then, so he can't see you now. We can't change anything." His gaze drifted past Gaston. "I know. I've tried."

In spite of himself, Gaston turned to see what he was looking at.


	2. Chapter 2

"A rose?" the Prince was sneering at the old woman at the door. "I don't want a rose! Go away, you wretched old hag!"

Gaston didn't see what the fuss was about. So far he had sat through – well, stood through, because there was only one chair in the room and the prince had been sitting in it – about fifteen minutes of this guy's Christmas celebrations, and nothing remotely interesting had happened. This was supposed to teach him what? All he was getting from the entertainment so far was that if he wanted to be someone else – which of course he didn't, because it wouldn't make any sense to want to be anyone other than the greatest hunter in the whole world – he might want to be that prince. It would have meant taking some serious losses in the looks, charm and muscle departments, and he doubted the prince's skill with a gun was up to much, but he had to admit he liked his style. That was the way to do it, the way he held all those servants in con... contem... the way he made sure they knew he was better than them. If anything, his mistake was that he must be paying them. Gaston could have taught him a thing or two about getting that sort of treatment for free.

And now he was letting that hag have it. Well, fair enough. If he were having a big Christmas party, he wouldn't want some ugly hag messing it up either. She'd distract people from the main attraction: him.

Something weird was going on, though. The hag was getting sort of... shiny. Then she melted – melted! Though her skin had looked a bit melted anyway, disgusting – away, becoming a beautiful blonde. Gaston felt himself nodding his approval. He wasn't sure about that entrance – he didn't like his female beauty mixed with saggy age – but he couldn't fault what was on the scene now. With Belle out of the picture, this lucky lady might be in with a chance.

Except no one here could see him. He really wasn't enjoying that part of the experience.

"You have been deceived by your own cruel heart," said the blonde.

Deceived? Huh, never mind. She was probably another one of those _readers_, and Gaston was done with them. You could bet this one was all about thinking and ideas as well. He shuddered. Almost as disgusting as the hag thing. Nope, this girl wasn't for him at all.

What was he talking about? She was beautiful. Beautiful was for him.

A scream recaptured his attention. It was coming from the prince. He was screaming like a girl! Gaston shook his head, his respect for him dwindling. Screaming? What kind of man was he?

No kind of man at all.

As Gaston watched, the prince's shape became just as melty as the hag's had been, moving and twisting until...

"Hey! That's you!" Gaston turned to share this revelation with the Beast, but his gaze was fixed on the scene in front of them. Gaston jabbed him in the arm to gain his attention but he didn't noticed, just kept right on staring. As the ugly lump of newly-Beastified prince fell to the floor, a huge tear leaked out of one eye and soaked into the fur on his face. Then another, this one splashing on the ground. The Beast was crying like a baby.

This was it, Gaston realised. This was his chance to finish the creature once and for all. He was almost glad no one would be able to see – where was the glory in killing something while it bawled its eyes out? But it had to be done. Something that weak didn't deserve to live anyway.

Moving quickly, he snatched up some kind of statue from a nearby table and raised it over his head, preparing to bring it down in a devastating blow. The Beast turned and looked at him, but not with that defeated look he'd had in the castle. This look said "Go on then, try it." Gaston took the look at his word. As the statue began its descent, the Beast neatly plucked it out of the air and put it back where it came from.

"Pay attention," he said, moving for the door. "You might learn something."

Gaston scowled. "You said that before."

"Didn't you?"

"I learned that you used to be a dumb prince." Gaston smiled to himself, pleased with this insult.

The Beast smiled right back. "You're right, I was."

Gaston didn't like it when the Beast smiled. "Can I go home now? This is going to be a boring night if you won't fight me like a man."

The Beast's paw was on the handle of the door. He looked down at Gaston. The fur around his eyes was still moist. Stupid monster.

"I'm not a man. I'm a Beast."

Gaston rolled his eyes as they walked back into the corridor. "So what now?"

"Now we're going to look at another Christmas," the Beast replied.

"Do we have to?"

"Yes. You do."

Gaston didn't have an answer to that, and therefore had no choice but to trail after the Beast again, looking through the weird windows in the tunnel. "What's with the rose?" he asked, after a while. He didn't care, but he was bored with the silence.

The Beast sighed. "It was part of the curse. I had to love someone who loved me back before the last petal fell to become human again."

Gaston squinted at the rose. It wasn't looking good. "How long did it take for all the petals to fall off?"

The Beast kept moving. "About ten years."

Gaston laughed. "Ten years and you're still a beast? You're more pathetic than I thought."

The Beast stopped suddenly, seizing a door handle. He yanked the door open. "Shall we?"

Gaston grunted and followed him through. He surveyed the scene. It was dark. Things were broken. Creepy organ music was playing and there was a little pool of firelight in the corner, in which he could just make out a figure sitting in a chair. "You again?" he commented. "Talk about self-obsessed."

The Beast blinked hard a couple of times, then decided to let that one go. "Me again," he confirmed. "Almost ten years later."

"The music helps?" the organ said, in a silky, unnerving voice.

Gaston ran this back in his head, the wheels turning as quickly as possible as he tried to work out what had just happened.

"Your music is the only thing that helps me forget."

It took Gaston a moment to work out that it was the Beast in the chair that was speaking. He turned to the Beast he'd come in with. "Is the organ...talking?" He regretted the question as soon as he'd asked it. Only weak men asked questions. Still, now he had, he was interested in the answer. He was starting to sound as crazy as Maurice. Who, he had to admit, was starting to look slightly less crazy. Gaston winced. He didn't like to change his opinions. It pained him a bit.

"Yes," the Beast said. "That's Forte. He's... no longer a member of my household."

"I see," said Gaston. It was a lie, but he couldn't bring himself to pursue it further.

"Come on." The Beast was off again. They left the dark organ room and marched through several draughty corridors until they reached the stairs. As they did so, a blue blur streaked past them and ran down ahead of them.

"Belle!" Gaston shouted, before realising that she couldn't see him either. He looked at the Beast. "What's she doing here?"

The Beast looked after her with a weird expression on his face. It was like the crying one, but with a little smile. Gaston didn't like him looking at Belle like that. "She was my..." he hesitated slightly before he said the word, "prisoner. Remember?"

"Well, yeah. But she looks happy."

The Beast sighed. "She's planning Christmas."

Gaston huffed at the mention of Christmas. Belle too? It was like no one in the world had any idea about what was really important.

As they walked down the stairs, it grew dark. A second blur, this one big and hairy, passed them as the entered the great hall.

"And you're destroying it," Gaston observed – somewhat unnecessarily.

The Beast was looking at the ground. "Are you learning anything yet?" he asked, quietly.

Gaston folded his arms. Something was bothering him. "What makes you think you can teach me anything?"

The Beast looked him in the eyes. "It's like I said before. We're not so different. Didn't you recognise the person we saw before, the one who was cursed by the enchantress? Didn't he remind you of you?"

"I've never been turned into a Beast."

"That's not what I meant. Haven't you ever treated people like they were less important than you because they're not as good-looking as you are?"

Gaston snorted. "Of course! If they were as important as me, they'd have loads of friends and everyone would talk about what they're good at. But they don't, so they're not. It's not my fault they're not good-looking or great at hunting."

"Do you think you deserve everything you've got?"

Gaston frowned. "Of course I do. Who deserves it more than me?"

The Beast crossed the room in silence, opening the door to a great big golden room with windows that seemed to stretch to the sky. Gaston wouldn't have said so out loud, but he was impressed.

"Sometimes," the Beast said, quietly, "People get things they don't deserve."

In the centre of the room, two figures danced. One of them, squeezed awkwardly into a blue jacket, was the Beast. The other was Belle. Smiling, she nestled her head against his chest. The Beast looked like Lefou did when Gaston accidentally tossed him a compliment. They span around the room together, holding one another gently but close.

"Sometimes," the Beast said, "people are just lucky."


End file.
